IF you have a frangipani flowering in mid-winter or your camellia bushes turned a riot of pink long before normal, you are not alone.

Gardeners across the Shoalhaven are leaning on their spades and scratching their heads about strange doings in the backyard.

Could global warming be to blame?

“The seasons have changed,” is the firm response from Dot Gallagher, Cambewarra gardener and long-time member of the Australian Plants Society.

“I don’t know if it’s global warming, but something’s happening.”

She reports that her David Austin roses need pruning in autumn rather than winter and her camellia japonicas bloomed far earlier than in the past.

“Growth you would expect in spring is happening all over the place, and there are strange patches of wet or cold,” she said.

Judy Hanson, from Plants Plus at Bomaderry, who has worked in the nursery industry most of her life, blames it all on the rain.

“The biggest influence is rainfall, whether it’s too much or too little, it changes everything,” she said.

“When it’s very dry, plants drop foliage and hold back flowering and fruiting. When the rains come, everything goes nuts to catch up.

“I don’t know whether it’s El Nino or global warming, or just the natural order of things,” she said.

Neville Taylor, who owns the Lazy Gardener at Shoalhaven Heads, also believes the seasons have changed.

“I’ve been here 40 years and you used to be able to set the date by the winds arriving in August,” he said.

“You can’t do that now. The fruit trees get out of whack and push out flowers in autumn, not spring.”

He said that some people believe it may be cyclic, and that patterns will change again in another 100 years or so.

“But all I know is that it’s changing now,” he said